Bonhams

Issue 34, Spring 2013

Editor's letter

One of the endless fascinations with art is wondering what will be sought after by generations to come. In this spring issue, there are a number of works featured that, at the time they were produced, most people wouldn't have given house room to – let alone paid good money for. Yet there have always been collectors who see something in an artwork that only becomes apparent to others in the years to come.

In March, an album of Lady Hawarden's photographs is being offered in the Historical Photographs sale. Mark Haworth-Booth, the former curator at the V&A, describes how this pioneering photographer's work was only properly rediscovered some 100 years after her death. Or take the case of Lucian Freud. On page 36, Richard Calvocoressi writes about a drawing of a dead puffin that the precocious Freud drew, aged 22, in 1944. Priced 13 guineas, it would have been only for the very brave collector. Now we see in it the forensic skill that prefigures Freud's later masterpieces.

Of course, there are some works that will always divide the world. Vladimir Tretchikoff's Chinese Girl, for example. Loved and loathed in equal measure, the image of the woman with the green face is the most reproduced print of all time. In March, the original oil painting on which it is based comes for sale in Bonhams South Africa Sale. On page 42, the designer Wayne Hemingway puts the case for its appeal and Boris Gorelik tracks down the model and finds out what she thinks about her face being a global phenomenon.

There are, of course, some objects that are prized the moment they are created: the star item of New Bond Street's Fine Jewellery sale in April, for example. I defy anyone not to be dazzled by the Bulgari Blue diamond ring – a superb example of a very rare stone.